Ontology Alignment

Ontology based alignment of classic and agile project management for an IT enterprise Piotr Szwed, Jan Werewka, Grzegorz Rogus AGH University of Science and Technology Institute of Automatics

Motivation and goals  In IT enterprises different projects may be conducted using different project management methodologies. Such situation may be caused by customer requirements, different team experiences and competencies, enterprise environmental factors or organizational process assets.  From the viewpoint of the enterprise executive managers it is important to have a certain level of alignment of different methodologies for  Analysis, comparison and assessment of currently running projects  Easy switching between different methodologies on team and management level  Clarifying and providing common understanding of project management terms, roles and activities for different methodologies.  We propose to align classic and agile project management methodologies based on matching (alignment) of ontologies. We plan to achieve it in two steps:  building ontological models of selected methodologies,  performing ontology matching that can be done partially manually and with the support of ontology matching techniques.  We focus on two popular methodologies  PMBOK - classic methodology based on project plans  Scrum –iterative and incremental agile methodology based on product value

Ontology Alignment  Ontology alignment is the process of determining correspondences between concepts belonging to two ontologies O and O’. The term ontology alignment or ontology matching also refers to specification of such correspondences.  The formal definition of ontology alignment defines it as a set of tuples: (e, e’, R, n), where  e and e’ are entities (classes, properties, individuals) belonging to ontologies O and O’.  R is the relation between e and e’ • equivalence (=), • subsumption (), • disjointness () • overlapping (•).  n is the confidence factor, typically in range [0,1]

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Alignment Techniques  Name-based An alignment is estabilished by comparing strings: entity names, labels, comments. Several metrics are used to calculate string distances between entity names. For distances above a certain threshold an appropriate tuple with the confidence factor equal to the calculated distance is added to the alignment.  Structure based methods determine the correspondence of entities by analyzing their internal structure (relations and data types used to express properties) as well as their position in the ontological hierarchy.

 Extensional techniques can be applied if individuals are available. Ontological classes are matched based on relations between sets of individuals (equality, inclusion, overlapping and disjointness).  Semantic-based techniques consist in determining the correspondence of entities of two ontologies by comparing their meaning with respect to an external formal specification (external ontology).

Architecture of PMBOK and Scrum ontologies  PMBOK and Scrum ontologies have similar architectures:  Common domain  Some concepts identified to enable structure based matching (e.g. processes in Scrum)

Groups of classes

Concept specified in methodology description? PMBOK

Scrum

Role

Yes

Yes

Artifact

Yes

Yes

Process

Yes

No, identified

Event

Yes

Yes

ToolsAndTechniques

Yes

No, planned

We plan to  Build manual mappings  Use structure based techniques  For some cases semantic based, e.g. WBS refers to WorkToDo, ProductBacklog refers to WorkToDo  Name-based for ToolAndTechniques

Events and their properties Event

DurableEvent

InstantaneousEvent

PeriodicEvent

e1 before e2 , e2 after e1

e1

e2 time

e1 overlaps e2 (e2 overlaps e1)

e1

e2 time

e2 starts e1

e2

e1

time

e2 during e1

e2

e1

Properties (optional): • hasAgent – participant (role) • hasLocation – place, where the event occurs • hasObject – specification of the object taking part in event • causes, isCausedBy – causal relations Temporal properties: • hasDuration • hasFrequency • hasOccurenceTime Temporal relations: after, before, overlaps, starts, during, finishes

e2 finishes e1

time

e1

e2

time

Events and their relations in PMBOK and Scrum Scrum

PMBOK Sequental execution of phases Initiation

Planing

Executing

Closing

Initiation

Controling&Monitoring

Planing

Executing

Containment of planning horizons

Closing


Phase1

Phase2

Strategy

Overlapping execution of phases

Sprint1

Sprint2

Sprint3

Release1

Initiation

Planing

Executing

Sprint4

Sprint5

Release2

time

Closing

Controling&Monitoring Phase1 Initiation

Planing

Executing

Closing

overlap Controling&Monitoring

Relations between Sprint, Daily and meetings

Phase2

Iterative execution of phases Sprint Initiation

Planing

Executing

Closing

SprintPlanning Meeting

Controling&Monitoring Phase1 Initiation

Planing

Executing


iterative Phase2

Closing

Daily Daily

...

Daily Daily

SprintReview Meeting

SprintRetrospective Meeting

Proposed mapping 1  A phase leads to an external release, one-phase project delivers only one release, whereas multiphase project can deliver multiple releases. Consecutive overlapping Planning and Executing events of PMBOK correspond to a Sprint and Daily events. PMBOK

Scrum

Project

StartegyPlanningHorizon

Phase

ReleasePlanningHorizon

Initiating


Planning

Multiple: SprintPlanningMeeting Sprint, Daily

Executing

Sprint, Daily

MonitorngAndControlling

Daily, SprintReviewMeeting, SprintRetrospectiveMeeting

Closing

SprintReviewMeeting (related to release shipment)

Project

Planning Init.

M&C

Phase Closing

Execution

Sprint Planning

Daily

Sprint Review

Sprint Retrosp.

Sprint Release Planning Horizon Strategy Planning Horizon

Proposed mapping 2  The second mapping assumes an equivalence between a Project and ReleasePlanningHorizon. The goal of a project is an external release. In this case the StrategyPlanningHorizon is not mapped directly, it is related to a product development achieved by several projects. A project phase is mapped to a Sprint, and events occurring during the phase are linked with overlapping relation to Scrum daily activities. PMBOK

Scrum

No match

StartegyPlanningHorizon

Project


Phase

Sprint

Initiating

SprintPlanningMeeting ReleasePlanningHorizon

Planning

SprintPlanningMeeting Daily

Executing

Daily

MonitorngAndControlling

Daily ScrumRevievMeeting SprintRetrospectiveMeeting

Closing

ReviewMeeting

Project

Planning Init.

M&C

Phase Closing

Execution

Sprint Planning

Daily

Sprint Review

Sprint Retrosp.

Sprint Release Planning Horizon